


Tryst

by BurgerBurgerBurger



Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Angst, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Hate Sex, Sharing a Bed, Unhappy Ending, let me make it clear that they are evil and mean and this is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:07:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27851386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurgerBurgerBurger/pseuds/BurgerBurgerBurger
Summary: They are forcibly removed from each other's company: dragged to opposite corners of the Red Quarters where they simultaneously declare they'll take a private penance for their transgressions, though neither does.
Relationships: Katerine Alruddin/Liandrin Guirale
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Tryst

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QuickYoke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickYoke/gifts).



> It's ya girl, back at it again, posting WoT fanfics because I cannot escape the black hole of the White Tower and the rarepair hell into which it thrusts my brain. 
> 
> AMOL spoilers, along with a few others about the Black and Red Ajahs that are revealed in earlier books. Also, fair warning, this one shot does not have a happy ending because it follows canon.

> I've said: I wouldn't ever
> 
> keep a cat, a dog,
> 
> a bird—
> 
> chiefly because
> 
> I'd rather love my equals.
> 
> Today, turning 
> 
> in the fog of my mind,
> 
> I knew, the thing I really 
> 
> couldn't stand in the house
> 
> is a woman
> 
> with a mindful of fog
> 
> and bloodletting claws
> 
> and the nerves of a bird
> 
> and the nightmares of a dog.
> 
> \- "Apology", Adrienne Rich

* * *

The first encounter begins with a scoff.

The next ends in a frenzy of snarling lips and seething insults, dignified Aes Sedai degrading themselves like spoiled teenagers vying for the same prize.

They are forcibly removed from each other's company: dragged to opposite corners of the Red Quarters where they simultaneously declare they'll take a private penance for their transgressions, though neither does.

* * *

That two sisters of the Red snap at each other like starving wolves is the talk of the Tower for weeks (until some Green hussy runs off to marry an Illianer dockworker) and the higher-ups among the Black laugh themselves silly in furtive meetings. The women are Sisters of the same Ajah in more ways than one— neither has yet reached that startling realization— but how it will rankle them both if they learn.

* * *

Liandrin's delicate eyebrows flatten into a straight line of rage despite the repetitive echo of Katerine's words. This scene has played out before, but never so openly or violently. They're alone together in the Red Quarters this time, no Jezrail to pull her fellows apart in a fit of nervousness, begging them to regain their composure.

Much like the last confrontation, they reflect the other's stance: a rigid posture of clenching jaws and bloody shawls draped too consciously across shoulders. They glare contemptuously, half grateful and half fearful that the other Reds have retired for the evening.

"Wilder whore," Katerine says, her face drawn in a predatory snarl. "I can hear it in your words, acting so high and mighty, playing at the Amyrlin Seat. But we all hear that little lowborn drawl _so_ clearly. Are ashamed of your accent, wilder?"

Liandrin closes the gap between them in two swift steps, skirts slashing through the air. Her finger strikes Katerine's sternum, and her heartbeat pounds like a war drum beneath the bone.She presses so deeply into the smooth flesh that her nail cracks faster than her equanimity.

"I am _not_ a wilder, you disgusting cow," she spits back, shoving Katerine into the wooden table where so many Sisters take their midday tea, pouncing as the taller Sister's knees slam against its circular edge. One of Katerine's elbows hits the table with a _thump_ as her other hand blindly grabs at rows of dark blonde braids. She pulls her attacker down with a grimace until her back thuds against the oak surface and Liandrin's weight presses flat against her chest.

There is a beat filled with arching backs and heavy breathing _—_ they abhor losing control; they want authority; they want power; above all, they want dominance _—_ before their lips crash together, mouths open wide for their tongues to meet, hands clinging to crimson fabric for only an instant, until Katerine tosses Liandrin from her chest with an undignified grunt. The shorter woman lands with an angry huff on the polished floor, rising into a defensive crouch as if expecting an Aiel to burst from the ceiling and strike her dead.

Katerine wipes her mouth with the back of her hand as she sits upright, and scoffs, "Slut."

Though it takes all of her self-control not to pounce on the fallen Taraboner, tearing off every layer of her clothing until shawls and corsets lay strewn about the room. Liandrin boils her blood like no one else, her beautiful doll's face permanently painted in a mask of displeasure.

"What does that make you," her voice rises in pitch, "you hypocritical bitch?"

Katerine stalks away, long black hair flowing gracefully behind her, and slams the carved door without answering or looking back.

* * *

As she stalks through the Dining Hall, Katerine locks eyes with Liandrin, fingertips itching for a fatal _angreal,_ courtesy of the Great Lord, of course, instead of the tray full of breakfast rolls and spiced porridge. Piercing eyes smirk over the rim of her teacup and she leans to whisper intimately to the woman at her left, Jeaine Caide, who responds with a chuckle as rosebud lips brush her earlobe.

_They're fucking_ , thinks Katerine, fury boiling in her gut. _That slut's fucking a Green, of all things._ She wills the muscles of her neck to relax, unwinding before the tension betrays her. _What does it matter?_

Liandrin can screw the whole Tower for all Katerine Alruddin cares, or so she tells herself with every passing step. Her envy rises until her appetite dissipates, and she glares at Jeaine Caide— of _course_ it's a Domani that Liandrin beds, an attractive, swan necked Green with long eyelashes and longer legs— who mutters something into her bowl through pursed lips, obviously uncomfortable with the attention.

_She's mine,_ Katerine glowers, her eyes fixed on her prey, an owl in a deep, dark forest _._ But her mind froths into a haze, confused and furious, and she wheels away without hearing their exchange. For all her vitriol she has no backbone to channel it, and flies away empty handed.

* * *

"I do love making simple-minded admirers jealous," Liandrin whispers, prodding at a sausage with a fork. "But this is just too easy."

"Using me again, dear?" Jeaine smiles. "I'm hardly the ideal stand-in for this sort of operation."

"She's too stupid to consider your preferences."

"So it seems." She frowns beneath Katerine's penetrating gaze, shifting in her chair. "Though now you've made me a target."

"Oh, grow up, Jeaine. She's nothing."

_Thank the Dark Lord,_ Liandrin thinks, _for removing the Three Oaths and returning the liberating freedom of dishonesty._

She raises her teacup to her lips, but does not drink. There is a niggling fear in Liandrin's stomach, worming through her guts like the slum diseases from her childhood. She'd dreamed of Katerine's long fingers and brutal kisses that left her lips swollen and red. Not a nightmare— it had been exhilarating and lewd and unforgiving— but it haunts her waking thoughts as persistently as a splinter left untended.

She sets her teacup down with a _clink_ , and doesn't touch the remainder of her now-cold breakfast.

* * *

"Are you going to eye me like a poor man in a whorehouse each time we cross paths, Katerine?"

"You'll put your lips on anything that moves, won't you, Liandrin?" Katerine's mouth curls into a lascivious grin as she looms over her, arms crossed haughtily beneath her breasts like a spoiled princess surveying last season's wardrobe.

" _Oh_ ," chuckles Liandrin. "Is that why you're always following me? For your chance with my lips? You'd certainly enjoy that."

"Not as much as you would."

Liandrin's head lolls to one side as if she's bored with the company and conversation, ignoring the stretching heat in her stomach. They stand outside of her private room, and she's trapped between the door and a barrage of insufferable banter, so she sighs melodramatically to cover her discomfort. "Your obsession with me is trying my patience. First breakfast, now a late night visit? I'll have to report you to the Highest if it doesn't stop."

The Highest, who would fuck either one of them in a _second_ if afforded the opportunity, has always favored pretty blondes. Liandrin would certainly win that gamble, though they'd both have to pay in some form or fashion. No one escapes unscathed when dealing with Galina.

The raven-haired Sister leans down, breath ghosting across Liandrin's face, taunting and tantalizing, and says, "Make me."

Suddenly the tone of the argument shifts like the flow of battle, an ember heat rolling up Liandrin's spine, nestling in the base of her skull, tingling and persistent. It is always a fight with them, the waging of war, all knots tightening in ugly, ineffective screaming matches, never unraveling. She chokes down the thought- _except when we kissed-_ and Katerine clung to her just the way she likes, possessive and uncompromising, fingers tugging hard on her hair. She felt something unsnarl in her then, and it thrums in her now too, the echo of that momentary victory; she tells herself that's all it is: winning.

The handle turns— it's black as pitch and family secrets in her bedroom— and though neither one expects the invitation, it hangs in the air between their exhales.

"Come," orders Liandrin.

Katerine stares down at her with hooded eyes, hungry and dangerous. She closes the space between them and murmurs, " _Make me_."

Liandrin curves her finger, loops it under the sash at Katerine's waist, and pulls their bodies flush. She breathes, "I will."

* * *

When they cross paths in corridor the following morning, their eyes gloss over in mutual invisibility.

One sucks tender lips into her teeth when she rounds the corner, tugging her hair across her neck and shoulders to cover the field of splotchy bite marks. She glares daggers at a squat serving maid, as if daring the old woman to ask how an Aes Sedai received such savage markings, until the crone hobbles off in the opposite direction with her laundry basket in tow.

The other idly rubs a bruising wrist, so distracted by her memories that she doesn't notice an approaching novice until the child is directly behind her. Surprised, she explodes into a ferocious tongue-lashing that leaves the girl trembling and teary-eyed.

They say nothing to each other, and stride off in opposite directions.

* * *

They meet nearly every night in one private room or another and once in the Great Library's Third Depository, though they were cut short by a nosy Brown wandering between the shelves, but they never plan their rendezvous in advance.

Katerine is marginally stronger in the One Power— _Obey me,_ her arrogant face screams when Liandrin is on her knees. _Submit.—_ but for all of her aggression, she isn't the one who instigates the violence between them.

Tonight Liandrin straddles her thigh on the bed, smiling venom against her lips, her tongue licking up every desperate pant that washes into her. Her hand works furiously between the legs of the younger Red, fingers circling hard and fast, and she drives five filed claws into Katerine's shoulder blade, scratching inflamed lines in tidy rows down her back. Her victim half-shrieks in pain, aroused and furious, until sharp teeth bite her lower lip into silence, and send her over the edge. Katerine's eyes water as she orgasms, gasping and curling into herself with a shudder. Liandrin giggles maliciously under her breath, and she cradles her as she comes down, fingers slowing to match her rocking hips. She presses Katerine's flushed cheek to her breasts, and buries her nose in soft, shiny black hair.

_She always smells like cherry blossoms,_ thinks Liandrin.

Her eyes fling open and she bites her inner cheek hard to draw blood. If anyone can will away the sentimentality and affection from sex, it's the petite Taraboner: nothing brings her more pleasure than giving pain to another and, though she is loath to admit it, receiving it in turn. They are well-suited in that regard.

"You bitch," gasps Katerine, pulling Liandrin's nude form closer in her lap. Her striped back rests gingerly against her headboard, sweat and minuscule droplets of blood staining the wood. "Heal me."

"No."

Katerine ruthlessly yanks a fistful of dangling braids to the pillows, relishing Liandrin's shocked face as her head snaps backwards. She pins the smaller woman down, left hand around her throat, right hand tracing the curve of her breast. Her back burns terribly, but she smiles into the sting.

"Why?" asks Katerine, lips sliding to a lonely collarbone. She notes with gratification the two fists balling around the fabric of her bedsheets as if clinging to the reigns of a runaway horse. The blonde simpers beneath her attention; the beginning of low moans form deep in the back of her throat.

Liandrin's fingers glide up to Katerine's left hand, squeezing the grip around her graceful neck tighter, gently asking for more pressure.

"You're my plaything," Liandrin whispers, pressing up into the warm body that pins her to the mattress. "No one else can have you."

For a long moment, Katerine is grateful that her face is occupied elsewhere. She is completely overwhelmed by the admission of emotional attachment, a mark of ownership, twisted as it may be. She's told herself for weeks that her fascination with Liandrin was purely physical—she tastes sugary sweet and moans so beautifully in bed _—_ but the aching sensation Katerine feels in her chest, the devastation she feels when Liandrin comes in her arms undoes her.

Her lips pulls away from the body writhing against her tongue. Brown eyes lock together.

"I belong to no one," Katerine sneers, slowly sliding two vicious fingers deep inside her bedmate, left hand tightening around her neck. "Especially you."

Liandrin chokes out a groan of pleasure and pain, exactly the kind she likes, and she bites her bottom lip as she whimpers, shifting her hips for more. Still, Katerine lowers to kiss her, her tongue warm and wet, with all the sensuality of a longtime lover. She decides when Liandrin comes, convulsing beneath her and screaming her name so loudly the ward might not contain it, that she'll allow her spend the night instead of issuing the usual command to leave.

She recognizes that some small portion of her traitorous heart will be crushed if Liandrin, who clings desperately to her forearms as she quivers beneath her, refuses. She recognizes that her own traitorous palm slides up from Liandrin's throat to graze her sharp cheekbone, delicate and tender. Katerine recognizes much in that moment, staring down at the woman beneath her, far more than she should allow, and the Taraboner exhales contentedly, braids splayed behind her on the comforter. She slowly disentangles herself, then reaches for the stockings that lie in a heap on the tiled floor.

The words on the tip of Katerine's tongue are filthy, vulnerable, impetuous things, and she severs them at once, replacing them with something harder, something less impulsive. She grabs Liandrin's extended arm and says, "I doubt you'll be able to walk after that."

Liandrin frowns back at her, peering over her shoulder. She finds it difficult to look into Katerine's eyes, as dark and deadly as a knife in the shadows, but asks, "Is that an invitation?"

"Perhaps," Katerine lazily shrugs, willing herself not to flinch at her smarting back or the way she feels stripped bare. "I may want you again later tonight."

Liandrin tosses back her head to laugh and Katerine's stomach drops like a rock down a well. It was a grievous mistake to let her weakness show, to demonstrate any measure of affection for an Aes Sedai as cruel as Liandrin, no matter how many times they've warmed each other's beds. She wants to cast her out with force and fury; there are measurements to this arrangement, concessions to be made, and she has lost the battle.

"And you think _I'm_ possessive, Katerine?"

Liandrin lies on the pillows with a derisive snort, her arms hugging protectively around herself, searching the face of the other Red. She curls into a loose ball, seemingly unaware of the goosebumps that blanket her flesh, or the fragile way she shivers.

The scalding heat in Katerine evaporates at once, replaced by something tremulous and warm. She hears her heartbeat pulse in her ears, suddenly self-conscious, lost in unmarked territory. Her voice catches in her throat; she almost says something indiscreet again, revealing too much, too quickly, and snapping the diaphanous thread that binds them together.

Instead, she mumbles, "Roll over and stop talking. You're not allowed to speak from this point on unless you're screaming."

Miraculously, and with another soft laugh, Liandrin complies, turning away from her. Katerine's eyes trail down her spine, and back up to the sloping lines of her shoulder blades, stretched wide as Liandrin holds herself, uncovered and chilled. Scoffing, Katerine scoots closer and pulls the comforter over them both, pressing her chest against the smooth skin of Liandrin's back, her palm flat and feather-soft against her hipbone.

After a long moment the tension ebbs, and Liandrin slowly takes the unsure hand resting cautiously on her hip. She pulls it up to her breasts, pressing herself closer into the warmth of Katerine's front. They do not say a word, but fall asleep pressed together for the first and last time.

* * *

Late in the night, Liandrin wakes from a cold, dark, drowning nightmare and weeps in silence— she cannot wake Katerine; she could never explain, not now, not after this _—_ breathing evenly despite the tears. She knows wonderful things will come to her in the Great Lord's service, but sometimes his timing conflicts atrociously with the thing she most wants. Katerine shifts in her sleep, one arm wrapping more tightly around Liandrin's waist, as if she means to anchor her, moored safely away from the rising tide.

She nestles into her embrace, her fingertips resting on Katerine's collarbone, small and frightened of the pacts she's made, the lies she's told, and the deeds she's yet to do.

Liandrin acknowledges her heresy, but for once she has no desire to obey orders.

* * *

The following day Liandrin disappears to Fal Dara, and does not return.

The other Reds notice Katerine's increasing hostility and rancor, but say nothing.

* * *

Stripes across Katerine's back crisscross with the five pink lines gifted to her so long ago. She wears a complicated weave, gliding through the reflection of the Tower like a ghost. She cannot afford to be distracted, though her mind slips again to the image of Liandrin beneath her, content on her bedspread, mistrustful brown eyes just beginning to soften as they looked up at her.

She wonders, as she often does, why Liandrin never came back for her. Katerine repeats her bitter mantra, _We could have ruled the Black Sisters together. We could have-_

Then there is a girl in white, a spear in her heart, and a blackness as unyielding as her Ajah.

* * *

It is difficult to rub the chaffed skin beneath the collar, but Lia manages after a bit of practice. She lies on her pallet in the kennel, watching the moonlight reflect off her silver chain. There was a time when strong fingers danced the line of pleasure and pain along her neck instead of the ring of cold metal, and there were mocking words disguised something akin to love.

_Or hate_ , she thinks. _They are one and the same._

She cannot be sure. It was years ago, when she went by a longer name. Though her turbulent relationship with Katerine was hazily defined at best, the woman once called Liandrin Guirale often wonders how differently things could have been if she'd returned for her lover instead of the other twelve. She shivers against the thin straw mattress, curled onto one side.

They wasted so much time as enemies. Liandrin regrets that it began with a scoff.

**Author's Note:**

> uuuuuuuggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh i love them


End file.
